A/N: Hope you guys all had lovely holiday fun times! I'm sorry I wasn't able to finish this for Christmas like I'd planned; unfortunately, I've had my hands rather full of children and dogs - not literally, I probably wouldn't tell you that- and it just didn't work out. I really don't want to rush this, so I'm just going to continue on as if Christmas never happened and hope you'll all forgive a little continued festive cheer.
This is another one of those split scene chapters I never know how to label, with the scene featuring Bae and Gold taking place earlier on in the day during the 'date' scene last chapter. Regina and Emma's scene is the fun that came after... Enjoy! And please review! :)
"She won't be in there, Bae..."
Gold sighs as he follows his son down the worn-carpeted hallway leading towards their motel bedrooms. The man in front of him walks with a sense of determination, his shoulders hunched up defensively and his expression set. The pawnbroker recognises none of these traits from their life together all those years ago and knows he's entirely to blame.
Neal has remained true to his word; offering little in the way of response to any of Gold's attempts at communication - save asking for the blonde's room number - as he's continued his search for the Sheriff.
So far, his efforts have been fruitless.
Following Emma's departure in the alleyway, the attractive brunette whom his father had introduced as none other than the Evil Queen had split from them also. She'd taken her leave with a firm warning directed towards Gold that had echoed chillingly off the rain-dampened brickwork.
"Your little heartfelt reunion can wait. Right now, Miss Swan needs to be found. You saw her face; she shouldn't be left to storm off alone... Either help to find her or don't, but I will tell you this; if you ever raise a hand to her again, I will see it as a personal request that you finally wish to see which of us would destroy the other, and I will have you begging for mercy."
Neal has a feeling the Queen's words had been meant for him too, in a way.
His father had responded with the wary sentiment that the brunette should calm down and get a hold of herself; assuring her that no one was looking to harm the young woman now absent from the scene.
Regina had countered with the stern opinion that bringing a cane down in the way he had done, with the intention to injure the blonde as badly as he'd wanted to do at the time, led her to believe otherwise; snapping that it had sure as hell been enough to send Emma running off without a word.
That sound... That sound of wood connecting with flesh... True; it spoke of pain... And yet...
And yet, it hadn't been his father that sent Emma running.
It had been him.
She had run off because of him.
It has been a great many years since he last saw her, but the truth still hurts.
"Come on, son. Leave whatever business you have with Emma be for now... Please... You and I have so much to catch up on!"
Throwing his father a dirty look, Neal remains set on his mission to track down Emma before he can even think about immersing himself any deeper into this insanity, and he raises his fist to pound on the middle of the three doors lining the hall.
"Emma? Are you in there? Open up!... Come on, we need to talk!"
He's met with nothing but silence, and he supposes he's begrudgingly aware of the fact that she isn't hiding in her room.
This realisation only serves to make him pound harder; desperate for release from the sudden madness threatening to once more close its wings over his life in the form of anything - anyone - but the slippery little imp behind him.
"She's not in there, son."
Gold tries again.
"Shut up!"
"And besides, as our friend, the Queen, so rightfully said; she won't want to speak to you right now... Miss Swan is not a woman to be rushed into any form of emotional reunion - in fact, I suppose there's more evidence of that fact than with most, given recent events - but eventually, she'll have to-"
"-What do you know about her? Why is she with you?"
Bae whirls around and snarls, and Gold notes the very distinct expression that settles over his boy's face curiously.
Protectiveness.
Interesting.
Letting out a low sigh, he taps his blunt-nailed fingers thoughtfully on the handle of his cane and regards his son sombrely.
"I haven't seen you in a great many years, Bae... As such, I hadn't imagined Emma would be our first point of discussion, but I will answer your question along with any others you must have, I owe you that much and more... Miss Swan is here of her own free will, make no mistake. Oh, she owed me a small favour, I'll admit, but she has not been forced to accompany me in the way you might be thinking... A lot has changed over the years, son; myself being one of them... Miss Swan's past is an interesting one-"
"-She's from our world."
Neal interrupts with a sigh, and Gold raises an eyebrow high up towards his hairline and nods.
"The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, yes... The Saviour."
"Who?"
"Prior to the devastation the Evil Queen reaped upon the land, if the Enchanted Forest had been a chessboard, they would have been the key pieces if you will... Snow White is the reason for Regina's anger that led to the Curse being set upon the land in the first place."
"Oh...You know, she really didn't seem evil, that woman... And Emma seemed pretty friendly towards her..."
"Oh, indeed, Miss Swan is very friendly with Her Highness... People change."
"Some people do. Which makes me wonder what business you have in all of this?"
"That is a question that is going to require some explaining, son... Come. Let's get you cleaned up and I will explain what I can."
Once again, Gold moves to place a hand on the younger man's shoulder, and this time, it doesn't get shrugged off, but simply slips away as Bae slumps defeatedly; only now aware of the dull throbbing of his nose as his injuries are mentioned.
He sighs.
He supposes he can't very well keep walking around the city covered in dried gore and so allows himself to be led into the room adjacent to the blonde's.
He allows himself to be led... But not once does he turn his back on the Dark One.
In spite of her request to be invited to continue their evening in the privacy of the blonde's bedroom, there is an unspoken moment of hesitation as the women reach the three doors that line the hall of the motel before they slip into Regina's room; furthest from Gold's.
The Mayor notes a slight change in Emma's mood as the reality of the situation is once more brought crashing down on them, but then that fearful glimmer of unease is replaced by something darker, and the younger woman pushes her firmly against the wall in much the same way as she had done down in the alley.
They've left the lights off, and everything is indigo shadowed midnight, and each is curiously reminded of their time spent in the darker woman's drawing room after the embers had died, the first time they'd tasted each other and what was to come.
It's a deep kiss; long and slow, before the need for oxygen becomes too great to remain moulded together the way that they are.
Regina lets out a small noise of wanting, and the Sheriff slips a hand down between them to play over the expensive wool of her dress pants. Her ministrations are slightly jerky - firm, hard circles with her cupped palm - and the brunette lets out a low, shuddered breath that whispers over the younger woman's softly parted lips.
Emma steps forward so that she presses heavily into the darker woman, never once faltering with the movements she makes with her hand, and the latter hooks her arms around her shoulders, her fingers slipping through golden tresses, as the blonde lowers her mouth to the delicate flesh just beneath the Mayor's earlobe; nipping gently, and then soothing electric heat with her tongue.
Moving her hips to encourage the Sheriff's delicious circles of her sex, Regina moves her jaw to the side, impeding the younger woman's sinful teasing, and places a tender kiss on the skin which is easiest accessible to her; on the latter's cheek. Continuing to play with tousled curls, she uses one hand to smooth messy hair away from the blonde's face while the other slips beneath its silken warmth to cup the back of her neck; her thumb rubbing gently just below the hairline at her nape.
She marvels at how long Emma's hair has grown since they first met, and knows that her own now touches her shoulders; neither of them having had the thought nor time to keep such things in check with the ever-chaotic and turbulent throws of their relationship.
She makes a note to get her own dark waves seen to on their return to Storybrooke but bears no ill feelings towards the way the Sheriff's curls tumble in a brilliant display of unruliness that suit their owner faultlessly. Nor does she have any adverse opinion towards the way rich gold ebbs out into silvery flaxen tresses - the difference between the shades noticeable, but fairly unobtrusive - as this acts in her head as a visual milestone of when this all began.
"I love you."
The words catch her off guard; not because they express anything new to either of them, but simply because she'd been unaware she'd planned on saying anything at all.
The attention being lavished on her below intensifies, and then the Sheriff unclasps and unzips expensive wool to allow warm fingers to slip inside her underwear; eliciting a harsh gasp that shudders from deep within her lungs to ghost over the blonde's cheek. Emma removes her lips from the darker woman's pulse point and grazes her earlobe gently, before whispering into that perfect shell
"Why?"
Regina blinks, sensing no challenge in the Sheriff's inquiry, but deeming the question to be anything but rhetorical. Struggling to concentrate in spite of the distracting warmth building in the pit of her stomach, she tightens her embrace and growls against the younger woman's cheek; pale skin slightly moist from her lust-induced panting.
"Because... You can make me laugh and you can make me cry within the space of seconds... Because you're beautiful in every way a person can be beautiful ... Because you-... You've changed me... You've turned me back into who I used to be... How I once was..."
Her voice is husky as a result of the pleasure building between her legs, but her lashes are wet, and she doesn't think she's ever found the answer to a question to come so easily, yet mean so much.
For a moment, she's awarded no response to her admission other than a sweet dip of skilled fingers, but then warm lips find her own once again and she smiles against them as she continues to tease soft curls gently, demanding her own answer.
"But, you're the Saviour. You're the 'light'... The question for you must be why would you love the darkness? Why do you love me?"
Emma hesitates - completely still but for her ever-attentive fingers down below - and Regina wonders if she will be denied a response. It wouldn't be wholly out of character for the Sheriff to fall short on a request for emotional honesty, and the Mayor reminds herself that she knows Emma loves her, and that her demand for an answer is greater than the blonde's had been for the simple reason that the ability to vocalise how she feels doesn't torment her the way it does the Saviour. Nevertheless, she yearns to hear what the blonde's answer might be, and she sighs contently when the body pressed against her own seems to relax; understanding that the Sheriff's hesitation had been due to nothing more than the careful structuring and re-structuring of her answer in her head.
"Because you like to test me, and, for you, my best was good enough when it mattered... You've refused me, confused me, amused me... You can be dark, and at one time, you could be cruel, but you always made sure to come back and pick up the pieces if you thought you might have stomped on them a little too hard... You've put me in my place, but you've also put me first... And you make me happy... You've changed me from the person I used to be. From how I once was."
Regina smiles and tugs gently at the younger woman's bottom lip with her teeth before nipping down with a little more force as an additional finger slips in to join the others and the blonde's thumb finds her clit.
"And because you're smokin' hot, of course..."
Emma withdraws her lip and growls into dark waves, chuckling low, and the brunette lets out an exasperated sigh that swiftly becomes a moan.
Slick fingers move faster, and the Sheriff finds the Queen's lips with her own, but unlike in the past, when sounds of impending ecstasy have been swallowed and devoured, she simply presses her mouth gently to Regina's to allow a tactile barrier; the brunette thinning her own lips as her teeth clamp over them from inside as she makes small noises of pleasure that become ever more sporadic and breathless.
"W-wait... I don't want to-... I want to-... With you..."
The Mayor's words are hoarse as she moves her head to the side to speak - her hips telling an entirely different story - as her fingers open and close over soft curls. The Sheriff smirks with understanding, knowing that tonight, things are different and that their pleasure needs to be mutual and tender, before lowering her attention once more to the tantalising swatch of bare, salted flesh at the darker woman's throat.
"Hmm?"
She feigns confusion.
"Emma... N-not like this... I want you to-... I want you too."
"I know... It's okay. It's not my bedtime yet..."
The blonde replies wickedly, before using her thumb with greater earnest and sucking at the smooth skin where the darker woman's neck meets her shoulder, causing Regina to shudder against her before closing her fists tightly over the long hair in her grasp; eliciting a small yelp from the blonde to harmonise her own passioned cry.
The Mayor clings onto messy curls a moment longer, her breathing harsh and frantic, before she pushes the younger woman away with a bemused glower. Noting the way several wavy strands of hair fall from her fingers, she sighs and tucks an unruly wisp gently behind the Sheriff's ear.
"Sorry..."
She mutters, and Emma grins with her tongue flickering between her teeth in the shadows as she decides not to bother pointing out that a little roughness has never been amiss in her book. Sensing the reason behind the younger woman's smirk, the brunette rolls her eyes and pushes herself away from the wall; claiming a rough kiss while running her hand up beneath the Sheriff's sweater.
"You are wicked..."
She hisses.
"Sometimes, but you love me, remember?"
Emma challenges.
"Sometimes."
"Hmmm... "
"Shush."
Regina admonishes as she offers a small smile and steps gracefully out of her pants and ruined underwear. Green eyes glitter in the darkness as Emma watches her, and she sniffs arrogantly as she moves her attention to her top and removes it with similar poise.
"You're being very one-sided, my dear..."
She muses as she stalks towards the bed in a whisper of perfect flesh and takes a seat on the edge of the mattress; slender legs crossed elegantly one over the other. The blonde raises an eyebrow in response, before walking slowly over to stand in front of her.
A flicker of first confusion, and then surprise crosses the Mayor's delicate features, as, rather than interpreting her meaning, the Sheriff falls to her knees with peculiar grace.
"What are you-"
But the brunette receives her answer as pale hands guide her to spread her legs apart. In the flickering city lights that give the room its eerie glow, the soft glimmer of her spilt excitement glistens like an offering. She watches silently as the younger woman works with slow leisure to clean her up; her stomach knotting as her arousal builds needfully at the sight of dusky pink velvet trailing across her flesh.
When she feels she wears no further damning glitter but that which has come from the blonde's own tongue, she tugs at long hair gently, studying the younger woman with intent curiosity, her voice low when she speaks
"Not quite what I meant, dear..."
Emma simply shrugs but takes heed of the way dark eyes fall to assess her clothes pointedly.
Stripping herself free of cotton, wool, denim and lace, she stands in front of Regina patiently as the darker woman leans back to observe her.
"Better?"
The Sheriff asks coyly, and the brunette laughs before moving herself up the bed. She waits, her eyes fiery with promise, for the blonde to take her cue and join her. It doesn't take long; Emma climbing up onto the sagging mattress and crawling to straddle slender hips with an appreciative sigh as nothing separates her heat from the Queen's.
She leans down to reclaim full lips hungrily, but a firm hand pushes her back up so that she sits with her legs splayed wide, looking down curiously; heavy waves falling down to cover her breasts.
Regina smiles and runs her hand over the sharp peak of the younger woman's left hipbone, and up the flat contours of muscle that cast an exaggerated shadow in the flickering darkness.
"How in the world you have the body that you do after bearing a child is beyond me..."
The Mayor stiffens as soon as the words have left her lips, and from the sudden clench to the Sheriff's jaw she senses she's not alone in her sudden, uncomfortable limbo. Things have changed drastically over the past few days - past few weeks, even - but this is still the first time that the visceral reality of Henry's birth has ever come up between them in so many words. Emma lowers her eyes beneath sooty lashes and the brunette swallows, before running an experimental finger down one of the faint silver lines marring the younger woman's side.
"I'm sure many would envy you."
She continues steadily, as her other hand joins in tracing patterns on the opposite side of skinny hips; the slight pressure she applies here and there coaxing the blonde into moving above her gently.
"Although, I suppose not everyone could be as stubborn as you seem to have been in getting your figure back - or any other walk of life, for that matter - or the world would be a rather terrifying place..."
She smirks as she runs her thumbs simultaneously down strong obliques, and Emma sighs - a little raspily due to her movements - and shakes her head.
"I've just always been skinny."
"No. I'm slender. 'Skinny', if you prefer... You-"
"-I wasn't toned before Henry... Like I said, I've always been slight; I only have to look at a pair of sneakers or drive past the gym and I've lost weight. Perhaps that part, some people might envy, but personally, it served more as an annoyance than a blessing given some of the crap from my past... It was different after having a kid, though... Like... A different shape."
"You were uncomfortable?"
"It wasn't that, it was just-... It was like having a tattoo for a really shitty relationship, or something. A visual reminder that's always there to jump up and bum you out. I just didn't want to have to think about it... About him."
She shrugs, and the brunette reaches up and pulls her back down so that she hovers with just a few inches between her nose and Regina's; the darker woman running soft palms down her back to rest companionably over her backside.
"Emma... Why did you give him up?"
She inquires softly; testing the waters.
"I just wasn't ready to be a mother..."
"No... No, if that were the case, you would have let being 'skinny' suffice... You would have sent Henry home in a cab rather than taking him back to Storybrooke yourself..."
"I was in jail."
"Not for that long..."
"...No."
"So...?"
"... Neal left me... The one person I trusted, the one person I'd allowed to let me believe I was, I don't know... Worthwhile... They fucked off... And, yeah, they screwed me over and got me in trouble for something I didn't do, but I'm not as angry about that."
"Emma, he got you sent to jail!"
"Yeah, but that wasn't what hurt... What hurt was that he left. He could have just never shown up - cops, or no cops - and it would have been almost the same thing. Not quite as bad, but still that same feeling of something being wrong with me... My whole life, it was like there was something about me that made people not want me around... I thought Neal was different; that he liked me and that he cared about me, but then he left... The decision I made when I found out I was pregnant, it wasn't easy. Don't think for a second I wasn't scared that what had happened to me would happen to my kid. That's why I wanted a closed adoption. Not so that if it didn't work out, it wouldn't be my problem, but, because I figured... If someone asked to adopt a kid without wanting to know anything about his birth parents... I don't know... I just hoped it would mean that they wanted to pretend the kid was their own. That they wanted to be his mother... It was flawed thinking, sure, but I was eighteen, and it was all I could think of to do. I wanted to give the kid his best chance. Part of that was logical; practical. I might not have been in jail that long, but don't forget, I was homeless before that. I wouldn't have been allowed to take him straight away whether I wanted to or not, CPS made that clear, but... If I'd sorted myself out, I could have tried to earn him back, but it would have meant putting him up for foster rather than adoption, and I knew how that went, and it just didn't seem fair to the kid. That was my logical reasoning behind doing what I did, but the part I felt deepest and kept to myself was just-... It was to do with how I felt when Neal left me standing there that night to take the fall for his messed-up plan. It was to do with what that night solidified for me; that there was something about me people were desperate to get away from... I just didn't want my kid to have to put up with whatever was wrong with me."
"... And if Neal hadn't left? Would you have-"
"-If he'd stayed?... Hell, if he'd just had a reason! An explanation! Then... I don't know... I mean, it still wouldn't have been wise. I would still have been very cautious about condemning the kid to the system for however long it took for me to sort myself out, but... I wouldn't have felt the same way about it. I wouldn't have felt the last part. I wouldn't have felt as though he was better off because of this terrible flaw I seemed unable to hide, even though that would probably have been the case... Well, it was the case. He found you."
"That's why you hit him. Neal."
"I was angry. I am angry."
"Because he lost you your child..."
"And made me a hypocrite in the process."
Emma nods woodenly, and the brunette shakes her head, pulling the younger woman down to her roughly; claiming downturned lips with firm vigour before rolling them so that she lies on top of the Sheriff.
"Then you need to tell him that. You need to tell him, and you need to tell Gold what a despicable thing that man did to you. You need to tell him it goes deeper than jail, deeper than standing you up as you said to him back in that alleyway. You need to tell him just what it is that he did to you so that you can get it out and try to let some of it go... Emma... I don't want to seem selfish and tell you that things worked out for the best. I know that's not-"
"-Why not? I would agree with you."
The blonde interrupts the Queen with a frown, and Regina stills, raising a well-defined brow, as she speaks with genuine surprise
"You would?"
"I-... Look. I don't know what would have happened after I got out, Regina... I'd love to say I'd have turned my life around, and that Neal is the sole evil in all of this, and that I would have done the right thing, and bucked up, but I can only tell you what did happen, which was more of the same. More screwing things up and getting myself into trouble... Just like you always thought!"
Emma grins at this, but it's a strained expression and the brunette devours it swiftly.
"What? That you're an unruly force to be reckoned with... Oh, Miss Swan, I don't just think it. I know it."
The darker woman murmurs into their kiss.
"Ha! You've actually only ever seen me very, very tame..."
"Well, then I shudder to think what I might have seen should you have deviated from being anything but your timid and oh-so-docile self."
She gives a theatrical demonstration of what that might look like and is finally rewarded with a more natural chuckle which she takes as a cue to begin moving her hips against the blonde's; kissing the younger woman sweetly, before pushing herself up to gain a little more leverage.
Strong fingers find her hips and the smooth skin of her backside to help her along.
She slips a hand between them to sate the Sheriff's need and provide herself with greater friction.
"Uhuh... I definitely think things worked out..."
Emma muses breathlessly, and the Queen shuts her up with a hard bite to her clavicle - inwardly dismissing the vague notion that she might just be marking her territory in terms of the hateful young man the Dark One has bought amongst them - and rapid, jerked movements of hand and hips.
It doesn't take long.
When the blonde crashes over the brink of climax, she chokes the darker woman's name; sending Regina falling right along after her.
They lie in the dark for a while without moving; the Mayor breathing heavily as she remains splayed over gently parted thighs with her head resting in the hollow of the Sheriff's shoulder.
Finally, Emma stirs them, rolling out from beneath the brunette, before surprising the darker woman when she reaches down to pull the covers up over the two of them seemingly without a second thought. Shuffling to get comfortable - her calf swung over the blonde's ankle as the latter's knee rests low between her own - Regina studies the younger woman in the dim glow of the city lights, smiling as the Sheriff finds her gaze sleepily.
"I had a nice time tonight... Thank you."
She confides quietly.
"Told you I'd woo you."
"Yes... Indeed you did."